Verbs of this moment

Currently: I am listening to : CCR Bad moon rising.
Having: a deep discussion about religion with a girlfriend on facebook.
Helping: my daughter write a comparison of Metropolotin PHILLIP's homily and the history they have been studying this semester at St. Raphael Ortho. Online School.
Planning: a new, fun idea for our church's Country Fair for this next summer.
Elapsed time since starting this blog post...appx 42 minutes. Am I good our what?!
Currently listening to: Phillip Phillips, So Easy.
Wishing: that I had some decent food to eat besides these retarded Resse's Peanut Butter cups.
Ignoring: the girls...they are having a pre-birthday slumber party for my almost 10-yr-old.
Thanking: my mother. She was kind enough to take my youngest for 2 nights, that helps.
Wanting: to write about something more meaningful, but my brain is fried.
Shutting down: Quickbooks and Excel. Bye work, see you tomorrow.

Check this out, my sister took two of our kittens home with her home tonight. This is the picture she posted and the caption...whoops. We feed them canned cat food. They are pigs!

You should have warned me they were such messy eater.

Currently listening to: U2, In the name of love
Update. Time elapsed since last update has been about 10 minutes. DD is still trying to write a paper and not bash the computer in. She keeps asking me things like, "will he notice if I don't send it in?" "why is school so not fun?" "this is so stupid!"...I just realized that she wasn't complaining...that's 'cause she was playing a game...grrr!!!
Relieved: that today is Friday. Tomorrow I plan to not think or go anywhere. Looking forward to that. Crap, I'm hosting a birthday party. Reason #32 not to have birthday parties.
Currently listening to: Front Porch, When the sun sets. My son wrote it. I LOVE this freaking song.
20 minutes. I gave my DD a firm pep talk and told her to underline ANYTHING relating to history in his homily.
Currently listening to: Phillip Phillips, Gone Gone Gone. 
Currently listening to: my boys in the room next door being spaz-oids at 10:45pm. I love them, but as they get older, they are much much louder and thump-ier and sound more like elephants when we are underneath of them in our bedroom.
Wondering: where DD snuck off to...oh right, I told her to get the bible.
Happy: that today is Friday. That sounds repetitive. I said that already, didn't I?
Figuring: I should send DD out to milk the goats, feed the cats and go to bed so I can go to bed too.
Currently listening to: 3 Doors Down, Kryptonite. 
Knowing: hubby is getting annoyed with how late I'm still up.
Just one more: Johnny Cash, Hurt (cover from Nine Inch Nails).

Vomit and Wal-Mart

Last Thursday I got sick, vomit sick. I know you wanted to know that. Who doesn't like vomit talk? I know that's why you read my blog. You are looking for the grotesque poop and puke. You're quite sick in the head, aren't you?

I was able to manage my large Wal-Mart trip before I got "the sick" as my kids call it. When I got home, I moped around a while, felt all tired and spacy, then I went into the bathroom and lost my lunch (Big Macs don't taste nearly as good coming up as they do going down).

I had a lovely time with my 7-year-old daughter at the store until I hit that wall. Normally I hit a wall when shopping, but that day I knew something was different. Fortunately we got into the check out lane that had a quick checker and I got right through... Ha, do you really believe that? You clearly don't know my history with Wal-Mart. Nope, this nice, laid back guy was nice and s...l...o...w.... After all, it was his second day working there. And boy, when I went to pay half cash and then had to pay the last $105 with the credit card (because can you ever stay on your cash budget at that store? Maybe you have that ability, but I have not "had" to use our credit card in 3 years because of impulse buying, I have been on a strict cash budget for 3. freaking. years. and Wal-Mart breaks me...) that really threw him for a loop. It's ok, we only had to wait about 8 minutes for a manager to come to override the mistake. Fortunately, there was a bench across the isle where I gave my daughter strict instructions to sit during the 1/2 hour check out ordeal. She very obediently "sat" with her cute new summer shorts and tank top outfit we had picked out for her that day while she swung her feet vigorously back and forth while singing to herself and enjoying her people watching adventure, meanwhile a cute little Korean gal came to sit next to her while she ate her apple next to my frigidity daughter. It was really cute to watch.

Have you ever heard about charcoal pills? I hadn't had any experience with them. I was told by good authority that I HAD to get charcoal before I got sick and for my sick family and that it would surely help with "the sick". Wal-Mart didn't have any but encouraged me to check GNC across the street. I headed over there, got 2 bottles and popped 4 pills (as "prescribed" by my girlfriend) and drove home. I'm pausing for a moment to debate with myself how graphic I would like to be about this... Brace yourself.

It was about an hour before I vomited up the charcoal pills and that Big Mac. Charcoal is black (obviously) and is supposed to absorb the bad stuff in your stomach. After a large lunch that charcoal didn't stand a chance, but it tried it's little heart out. There were fairly large chunks of black all throughout. I had used a throw-up bowl of choice and when I poured out the chunks the charcoal left a nice line of black in the bowl that had to be rinsed multiple times because it is heavy and wants to stay on the bottom.

I lost my lunch a second time that night and thought about a third. I was happy that the following day none of my kids decided to get "the sick" and so my husband (still recovering from his sick from Monday night) could manage to take care of me.

It's now Tuesday and I am still in a semi-dazed state. My memory has been wracked by what ever this is, but my mind is going 100 miles an hour. Certain synapses are firing at full speed ahead while others won't connect, so it's a very frustrating state of mind to say the least. It has led to a weekend of a false sense of feeling better yet a huge irritation to the world around me and at people that normally don't irritate me in the least. I have forgotten the most basic things like the fact that today my husband was going to take our oldest (finally) on her "birthday date" a tradition he started last year. Fortunately, with this memory lapse, my to-do list seems much shorter than it probably is.

I really hope that for the sake of the next person who used that shopping cart after I did uses one of those sanitary wipes.

Much adoo about poop. You heard me, poop.

Where shall I begin, really it wasn't all that wacky of a day on the wacky scale of things; but for nostalgia sake and for the fact that my memory sucks, here's a blog post on last Friday. I started it Friday and finished it today, it's been a busy week.

My daughter is almost 15 and today I got her a new kitty. I also brought home a new goat. It was sunny and a perfect; 70 degrees all day.

I was at my friend, Karlene's house, and she was showing me her pigs, chickens, turkey, geese, cow and of course, her goats. Her barnyard is looking so picturesque. She told me that her husband had bought her a new kitten for Mother's day (because that's what every mother-of-seven and a ginormous heard of goats wants for mother's day, donchyaknow?).

I told her how the week prior I'd given our kittens (Archer and Bumpkin, two that Karlene had given me) to my sister who discovered a large mouse infestation in her chicken house. She had already lost 4 kitties due to mean woodland creatures as she lives in the woods, but with the mice, finally agreed to try it again. It was good timing because the combination of our 4 cats were decimating our new bird population that had just moved in for the next few months to hatch out their babies. They were catching about 5 birds a day, and we had had it with their mad catching skilz. Besides, only our house cat, Oreo, was catching actual mice, she had to go far to find them too, we haven't had mice since we got her last year. Well after I gave those 2 cats to my sister, our other outdoor cat, Fred, decided to get lost, perhaps he was looking for his buddies or maybe a dog ate him, I really don't know, but we were sad he left, he was a sweetie. Then 2 days later Oreo disappeared, she was my son's cat, she was fixed, not very cuddly but a great mouser. That was pretty upsetting, but we have owned 7 cats in the past 18 months and now we have none...

our 3 barn kitties 2 weeks ago

Karlene, being the saint that she is, gladly gave me her long time barn kitty, Yoshi. She is snuggly and a moucer. What a sweetie.

One of the reasons I made the trek up to Karlene's was to get our new little goat, Belka (daughter of Elka) disbuded. Her horns had grown a lot in five weeks and I was behind the 8 ball getting her poor little head burned. Karlene is my goat mentor and she still does all sorts of uncomfortable goat farmer duties I haven't learned yet. She burned large circles around her horns while the goat screamed her little heart out. The smell is awful and there is a LOT of smoke, burning flesh and hair, that smell.

The other reason I was there was to take my friend, Amber's, buck that she was renting from Karlene back to Karlene. Karlene is an hour away. I was also taking our goat, Lady to get bred and in the meantime she would send me home with a goat in milk since hubby is annoyed at feeding animals that aren't producing. So, the new goat I brought home is, Elaine. A sweet Nubian who looks just like my other giant Nubian, Amelia but she's only a yearling first freshener and much smaller. We may end up buying her, not sure yet.

Typically when I load up goats to go to Karlene's I put down a tarp in the back of my trusty eight passenger 2003 Chevy Venture, roll up the edges a bit, and they may poo or pee one time each. Zero times, if I'm lucky and I have been lucky. Well on Friday I learned a lot more about bucks behavior. It's one thing to know about buck smell, but it's another thing to "know" about buck smell. You see, bucks pee on themselves to make them more handsome and attractive to female goats. Their wiener even has a little spinney end on it so that when they pee it is not straight down but in a whirl y-gig fashion. I am so thankful this buck's whirl y-gig was either broken off, or non-functional. They also pee a lot more around girl goats, the smell is attractive to them. And apparently poop much, much, much more than girls do. That stupid buck peed at least 8 times in that hour drive, and I mean PEED! A lot. He also pooped a lot. Probably another 8 times on that count too. So by the time we got to Karlene's the tarp was full of "mud". Nice huh? Unfortunately my doe was not impressed, there was no "van-a-rockin" from their hanky panky that day. Darn.

The other thing my daughter noticed before we left was that Belka had the runs. Meaning she wasn't feeling well. Karlene is basically my vet too so I knew taking her out there would get her help as well as a burned head. So off we went... I put a blanket on my daughter's lap, buckled in my 4-year-old and we were off! Already late as usual, I didn't really consider what we would use to clean up any gooey droppings from Belka. Huge oversight.

We got 45 minutes out, almost there. "Mama! Can you please pull over right now! She pooped in my hand!" Gross. I pulled over as soon as I could but not quite soon enough. She had to put Belka on the floor and she dribbled more poopy on my daughter's "Alaska Grown" hoodie. She asked her 4-year-old sister to unbuckle her (her hand was still full) and so the 4-year-old, who by that point had taken her mud boots off, stepped right into the dribble glob. When I told her to be careful because I could see she might step in it, she had already done so but quickly jumped back into her booster seat, well, yes, spreading it all over her seat. She promptly sat down (in it) and took her socks off, as if that would help at this point. After my older daughter jumped out of the car with the loose psyco baby goat, it was my job to catch then hold the goat from running wild while my daughter wiped poo from her hand on the alder filled tundra-ish ditch area. After she got a make-shift halter around her I was able to look for some baby wipes, because I never leave home without baby wipes...except on Friday. My youngest child is now 4 and apparently I have not made sure we have a good baby wipe stash in a while...not a good time to find this out. Paper towels? No. Napkins? I always have napkins! Oh, look, there's one. One napkin. A little chincy "they are trying to save money at that cheap drive through" sort of napkin. I wiped the poop off of my wedding ring and fingers; and that was all. I resigned myself to doing a load of laundry when we got home. I saw the buck peeing, saw that he wasn't stopping, contemplated letting him outside but thought better of it, told him to stop, he didn't, so I grabbed his face and looked him straight in the eyes and said, "Stop peeing!" and he stopped. Oh, right, and when I was looking for wipes on the driver side of the van and shut the door behind me, the awesome automatic door that sometimes acts like a jerk decided not to shut and to re-open. Lady decided to make her grand escape and jumped onto my oldest daughter's seat and jump out on the road side of the van. Yay! So the oldest threw the halter/leash at the 4-year-old and yelled, "hold her" as she ran off to catch Lady. But the 4-year-old didn't actually have a grip before it was let go of, so off went Belka. We caught her. I rushed around to shut the door before the buck decided to escape as well, I used my daughter's poopy socks to wipe off the "mud" that Lady had gotten all over my other daughter's seat now. We finally got all three goats back into the van, the hoodie now acting as the dribble catcher on the floor in front of my daughters and both girl's seats slightly marred with goat "mud". Time to GO!!! We got there as fast as possible and I pulled the full tarp out of the van to let it drip dry while I enjoyed my visit. I fetched all of the extra goat droppings that had escaped the tarp, there are always some of those. Fortunately I had a pair of work gloves in the van that I wore the rest of that day 'till I got to Taco Bell on our way home to order us some dinner.

I always wonder what the Taco Bell employees think when I go through their drive through with goats in my car. That's how we roll.

Yoshi, Elaine and Belka on the ride home.

Youngest was woken from her nap by kitty snuggles.

Silly Saturday

My kids are funny and they say or do amazing or silly things. Sometimes I write them down on facebook or here...

As you may know we are homeschoolers. Spring is the hardest time for school for any child and that does not exclude mine. Math seems to get harder this time of year as well and they loose their focus more than usual. I decided to declare a contest on Thursday and to let the kids race through the rest of their math books and see who could win a promised "large bag" of candy. Well the boys were ok with that but were convinced that their little 9-yr-old sister would be the clear winner. She was already 10 lessons ahead of the 11-yr-old and 16 lessons ahead of the 12-yr-old. Well little miss 9-yr-old decided that she was going to win and the first day did 3 lessons total and on Friday morning got up and did 3 more lessons before I even got out of bed! I asked her if she was even going to give her brothers a chance. She giggled, "No!" The boys gave up so I decided to offer a boy reward of the video game that they have been wanting. Yep, I'm desperate.

little miss stinker doing her math

Yesterday was garbage pick up day. I asked the kids if the trash man had come yet. My 4-year-old daughter responded. "Yes, he came and we talked and talked. Oh, mama, I have to whisper you something." "Ok."  I said and bent over. "I think the trash man and I are in love with each other." Hopefully my daughter will grow out of the extra tall, much older, really creepy men stage.

the girl who loves the trash man

My 11-year-old son has now read all of the Brothers Grimm stories he also had his own chicken job this week and his brothers as well. On Tuesday he wrote this story:

The Two Chickens

Once there were two chickens. One of the chickens ate eggs and the other was simple and stupid. One day the evil chicken overheard the farmer talking with his wife, "One of the chickens is eating our eggs! When I find out which one eats the eggs I will kill it!" When the hen heard that, she became frightened and then she remembered the simple one and thought of something evil. The next day the farmer came out with a hatchet and put an egg in front of both the hens. Then the evil hen said to the simple hen, "Hey guess what? There is a treasure inside the eggs, just peck them out." When the simple hen heard that she looked at the evil one and answered, "But I don't know how to do it. I have never done it before." When the evil hen heard that she became angry and yelled, "Why are you so stupid" Do I have to show you how to do everything? Look, you do it like this." Then the evil chicken pecked the yolk out of her egg. But no sooner had she done this her head was cut off. And the stupid hen lived happily ever after. Then end.

My writer man on his birthday. I had to go with the Instagram 1977 look because of his vintage
Star Warst-shirt and his Star Wars cake his sister made for him.

Christmas break and the dreaded week after

I can not express how much I love Christmas break. This year was better than ever because I decided to take a full two weeks off and to not even THINK about school 'till it was over. A couple times when the kids seemed stir crazy I considered giving them school to keep busy, but quickly forced those demonic thoughts out of my head and told them to play more video games or watch another movie. We enjoyed our break, IMMENSELY. 

Starting school again after Christmas break is always rough.

This week...has been hellish.

This is the week all those homeschooling moms say, "why do I do this again?" and by the weekend are ready to lay in bed for two days straight after drinking themselves into a stopper because on Friday they started drinking at noon to just make the pain go away.

I have come up with some neat tips and tricks that you can tuck into your ammo vest, this list was compiled mostly with what not to do methods I discovered by doing them. That's how I roll.

Firstly (for the kids) DON'T constantly loose your temper at them right away in the week (like I did: do as I say, not as I do) . If you've come down with a nasty fever/cold like I got, perhaps TAKE A SICK DAY as much as humanly possible or you will be an even more wicked witch than you normally are and nobody benefits from it. In fact, I have a feeling that anything you wanted them to learn that day will be eternally blocked from their memory because it was taught on such a traumatic day, so it won't matter anyway.

TRY even harder this week to be EXTRA CALM. This will benefit you, I promise. A calm mother helps to calm her children. Even if that means calmly duct taping your 4-year-old mouth shut and sticking her in a closet, that's fine. After all, she has soooo many new songs she wants to sing after watching an exorbitant amount of NetFlix cartoons during your 2 week vacation.

Use bribery. Again, something I totally forgot about 'till today, Friday (the booze helped me to remember). Bribe with all that 50% off candy you bought the day after Christmas, that's right, chuck your no sugar rules OUT THE WINDOW this week! Bribe with their new video games that you just screamed at told them they couldn't play for a year because they weren't getting their school done. Coax them by cutting out problems in their math, after all, they are all just. so. repetitive. 

Stay in your pajamas. One less thing to do. It's a good thing. (this is one of the things I DID do this week)

Extra coffee. Well, duh.

Make good food as much as you can. I know, I know, this is hard. But, it reminds your kids that you can actually be kind and they may even thank you for your delicious food when you sit down to eat as a family. Also, feed yourself!!! This is one of my biggest mistakes, but forgetting to eat makes for an extra chafed mama.

Try to get at least one date night in during this week. You need a break from your kids but an even bigger reason is that they need a break from YOU! Go out with your husband, your girlfriends, or yourself. Doesn't matter.

Apologize to your family (individually). If you had the week from hell like I did, take a few minutes to tell them how hard it was for all of you and how very sorry you are for loosing your temper so often. Also praise them for the great job they did in spite of having such a rough week. This goes a long way. Include a hug for good measure. Remember that you're not only their teacher but also their mom, your job is to nurture as well as teach. Something I often forget.

Buy extra pencils just for this week. Sharpen them, leave them in jars on your table. (thank you Amber for this tip) They will inevitably: drop, loose, snort, eat, destroy, disappear and break THOUSANDS of pencils during this week in order to avoid doing their work. Don't let those pencils win.

Air horn. Brilliant. Thanks, Aimee.

Don't shower. Again, less to do for you. (did do, don't tell)

And that just about sums up the practical tips that I have after my week is now over (mostly) and my brain suddenly makes it's grand appearance after being in hiding all week long. I shall try to read my tips BEFORE school begins after next years Christmas break. But I probably won't. I think I'm doomed to repeat this cycle for the next 12 years that I will be homeschooling my children. 10 years down, just 12 to go!!! If you have tips to add PLEASE indulge us! Add them to the comments below.

And don't forget, sweet mothers-at-your-wits-end, homeschooling is a sacrifice and a choice you made to benefit your children. Wear your yoga pants-greasy hair-no makeup badge proudly. And remember my wise husband's motto that helps me be a better, and less worried homeschooling mother:

"It's our job to screw up our kids education, not the government's. Have faith that even if we have some failings, we WILL do a better job than someone else can with our God given children."

He also asks regularly:

"Honey, would you like a beer or some chocolate?"

What a wise man.

This is a fairly good image except for the mom's cute top, clean apron and dressed children...what homeschooed kid 4 and under wears all clothes at all times?? And look at the little girls' hair, it's BRUSHED. Psh. Unrealistic.

Disclaimer: Please realize that this post is VERY tounge-in-cheek. I want to stress how much I adore my children and love them dearly. I'm the best mom they could have and I would never actually do anything to harm them. Please don't take this post too seriously. I personally think it's silly to have to say this, but wise husband has encouraged me to regardless.

Wal-Mart

For a few years now I have had a strange aversion to Wal-Mart.

Perhaps it was when they moved into their now “SUPER WALMART” gigantor store, I really dis-like having to re-find all of my favorite things.

Perhaps it is the realization that every shirt I bought there would shrink from top to bottom but widen from side to side.

Perhaps it was the fact I finally learned that when I go there to save $5 on diapers I still come out spending at least $100 on “great deals” AKA a bunch of crap to unload from the car and then find a place for at my house.

Perhaps I simply don’t like walking 5 miles to overfill my cart and then when my little ones start screaming I get in line for check out, THEN wait in line for another 30 minutes before I get to actually leave the store.

Perhaps it was the time my husband went to buy cigars for a hunting trip and the checker (behind the cigarette counter) almost wouldn't sell him any, claiming they were bad for him and he really shouldn't smoke them. Good thing she was there to educate him, I don't think he'd ever heard that before. 

Suffice to say, It’s not the, “Let’s-boycott-the-big-box-stores-to-make-ourselves-feel-better.” reason that regular people like to toss around. I have my own special list of reasons.

My husband likes Wal-Mart. Well, let’s say, my husband has a pretty good grip on our spending and doesn’t mind walking 5 miles for chicken feed when he will save $5 per bag, that is $20 when you buy 4 at a time. He's also smart enough to not take the little kids with him. My husband is a man, after all, and has a practical mind. A gift I would love to have.

For our “date night” on Sunday we left our younger kids in our older kids most capable hands and ventured out for a night on the town. We stopped by Silly Sister’s house to drop off some whey left over from Husband’s cheese making that day. Our pigs (that dear Sister is caring for) love that stuff and it’s nice to see it put to good use. We then ventured over to Town where we decided to grab a bite at Red Robin. They have delicious onion rings and “mama” drinks there.

We then did what we had gone to town to do, and that was a Wal-Mart run. I only go there with Husband as he is strong enough to push the cart loaded with 200 (sometimes more) pounds of grain from the WAY back of the VERY big store up to the registers. While he got the chicken feed I got our typical bananas, apples and Cheerios, then stopped off at the kids clothes section to get my son 2 new t-shirts and my DD a tank top that she had specifically requested for these few hot days we have had.

Up at the check out line, we only waited about 7 minutes that evening as it was about 10pm and was greeted by a young man checker, maybe 19 or so. When he rang up the first bag of chicken feed he exclaimed, “Wow, that’s so expensive!” It was funny in my mind because when I was trained at Safeway we were taught not to tell customers that we thought our store prices on things were expensive as we don’t want to discourage them from spending their money with us. While the young man was ringing up our groceries he noticed my husband’s work jacket and asked him if he worked for "that company", to witch he replied, “yes.” The young man says, “I hate "that company" they ripped me off!” and proceed to tell us the story of how my husband’s employer he has worked for for 20 years, has provided very good health benefits, has paid him faithfully so that we can pay our mortgage and buy expensive chicken food; completely ripped him off. I feel bad for the fellow that he felt this way, I also know that if you talk to someone there about these sorts of problems they typically can reconcile it with you. And, wait, aren’t we his customer tonight??

I paid for the groceries with cash and he gave me back the one dollar bill and then proceeded to count out the change into my hand. I’m very un-familiar with this method of giving change, and then he dropped a bunch of it on the ground and hopefully found it all.

After Husband went to the car to load the chicken food; I bought the kids clothes. The fellow was placing the clothes into the grocery bag and asks, “So are these for your grandkids…………….(long silence where I had no idea what to say)………..or your kids?” Wow, this is a totally shocker for me. I am only 35. My oldest is 14. I felt so sorry for the guy and so indigent all at the same time… I said, “Soon enough, soon enough. It goes by so fast you don’t even know.”

What a dumbass.

As we drove home that night we enjoyed the chuckle we got out that memorable experience. An even better horror story to add to the other Wal-Mart stories under our belt.

Thanks, Wal-Mart, you make memories that last a lifetime.

Poem by Second Son

Birds

There are many kinds of birds in our neighborhood.
Like the Yellow Bellied Dote
and the Blue Crested Balote.
The Black Headed Squinch
and the Evil Brain Finch.
The Ugly Faced Belch
and the Moldy Head Squlch.
All these birds in our neighborhood.

15 years

I was talking to my mom the other night, and she asked me about our anniversary. Did we go out? What did we do? Then what, etc. She declared that I should go write a blog post about it since I haven't written in so long and she liked the story...

15 years. It's a big deal. Woop woop, and I say that in my most sarcastic way possible. I know it's a big deal but it's not a big deal. It's just us, silly people, still, yep still here. So off we go (now able to leave our chitlens home ALONE, ) the oldest ones do a fine job of watching the little ones. They also do a fine job of making mac-n-cheese and sort of cleaning up the kitchen too. Let's just say, since we discovered leaving them home ALONE, life has been maaaavalus. Allowing us to go on dates like never before, mostly just getting out of the house, going to my sister's to hang out or just out for a quick bite or a drive...spending alone time for us and for the kids has been a huge bonus.

I decided to put on a skirt for our date. After all it was our anniversary. I told the kids that if they behaved well that day I'd let papa take me out to a movie and dinner. I'm not a huge movie buff and feel like generally they're a waste of a good date since you can't talk. But I digress. We left the house with an hour before the movie began. Hubby couldn't find jeans with out a hole so we headed to Freddys to pick up his annual 2 pairs of black jeans. We found them and I wandered over to the women's clothing section finding some super awesome things that I had to have. When he found me he asked for the time, it was 7:15 and the movie started at 7:25. He gasped and we rushed up to the register. I didn't gasp 'cause I don't really care if we miss previews. After we purchased our clothes I asked him if he wanted to change, he gasped again, No! We're LATE! So off we went.

In the car he decided to try to understand how my brain worked when it came to time sensitivity and he was really trying to wrap his head around how I just don't really care about being late...the conversation didn't get far as the theater is close, but I don't think he'll ever understand.

At the theater (our new big totally awesome one in town) we got there mostly on-time/late-ish depending on who you ask and stood in line for our snacks. I got my popcorn and he got his hot dog, pretty normal for us. He insisted that I go in since he still had to doll up his dog. I sat down in the lit theater with the local commercials playing.

He came in to sit down but accidentally dropped his hot dog onto the floor. "Oh no!" I said, "your hot dog!"

"Oh no!" He said, "My new pants, they have mustard all over them."

This is where my mom asked how he got his new pants on...well, he changed in the car while I drove to the theater.

I assured him his pants would be fine and we could wipe it right off and they'd wash. But your poor hot dog, that can't be saved! He left to get another hot dog, he came back and sat down and ate it.

Him: "What time is it?" Me: "7:45" Him: "What?! I wonder if they know that the movie hasn't started..." Me: "Well, go ask them." He did, so then they started it. But I had to agree with the lady down the row from us who said, "where do we have to go?" I said, "yeah, where? We have a babysitter."

About 15 minutes into the movie the fire alarm started going off, not in the movie we were watching, but in our theater. So the lights automatically turned on, the movie shut off and we left. False alarm. Go back sit down for 5 minutes, still no movie...oh! the movie is back on...not where it shut off and with no sound. Nice. 5 minutes later an employee came in on her walkie talkie telling someone how we had no sound. And then she passed out free movie tickets to everyone...SCORE. 5 minutes later the sound came back on. Did they press their little rewind button and rewind the last 15 minutes of the movie for us? Of course not.

We left the theater at 10:05. Most restaurants in our town close at 10pm on weeknights. So he said, "lets go to the 24 hour diner." Hmm, diner on our anniversary...not much of a choice at this point. We got a pizza (note: try to avoid diner pizza, diners make good eggs, not pizza), he bought me flowers and we went home.

I love my life. I get frustrated with myself, with my emotions, with the constant list of tasks, but when it boils down to it it's a wonderful life and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

My man and me about 15 years ago.